One of the more noteworthy sections in Reigeluth is when he describes the tension between Knowledge Producers and Knowledge Users.
"One particular way in which practitioners and researchers/theorists seem to have a cultural gap concerns the basis for judging the value of theories and research findings, especially about the extent to which theories should tell practitioners what to do. Instructional designers and other practitioners primarily judge the value of a theory or of research findings based on the extent to which some practical implications can be derived from them. In contrast, knowledge producers primarily judge the value of a theory or of research findings based on the extent to which they lead to new insights and point to new directions for conducting further studies and constructing theories."
In other words, there is a tension between researchers and practitioners. For the moment, I'll come at this problem from the perspective of the researcher and with this in mind, one way I think researchers can do more to bridge this gap with practitioners is to build in questions that seek to elicit a better understanding of the constraints they're operating within. What form would these take? That would largely depend on the specific details of the instructional design project; however, they could be questions as practical and mundane --but important to the practitioner-- as cost, time, and venue limitations. Ideally, this could benefit the Producer/Researcher in two ways: (1) it visibly demonstrates a genuine sensitivity to the perspective of the practitioner; and (2) the conscious act of incorporating questions that relate less directly to instructional design, but may nevertheless influence its overall, ultimate success among stakeholders may improve the researcher's design skills.
"One particular way in which practitioners and researchers/theorists seem to have a cultural gap concerns the basis for judging the value of theories and research findings, especially about the extent to which theories should tell practitioners what to do. Instructional designers and other practitioners primarily judge the value of a theory or of research findings based on the extent to which some practical implications can be derived from them. In contrast, knowledge producers primarily judge the value of a theory or of research findings based on the extent to which they lead to new insights and point to new directions for conducting further studies and constructing theories."
In other words, there is a tension between researchers and practitioners. For the moment, I'll come at this problem from the perspective of the researcher and with this in mind, one way I think researchers can do more to bridge this gap with practitioners is to build in questions that seek to elicit a better understanding of the constraints they're operating within. What form would these take? That would largely depend on the specific details of the instructional design project; however, they could be questions as practical and mundane --but important to the practitioner-- as cost, time, and venue limitations. Ideally, this could benefit the Producer/Researcher in two ways: (1) it visibly demonstrates a genuine sensitivity to the perspective of the practitioner; and (2) the conscious act of incorporating questions that relate less directly to instructional design, but may nevertheless influence its overall, ultimate success among stakeholders may improve the researcher's design skills.
